In Death 27 - Salvation in Death

betrayal.”
    “With the potential side benefit of stepping into his shoes or marital bed?”
    “Lieutenant,” Luke interrupted. “He’s confessed to his sins, to his crimes. Is there need for more? He’s prepared to accept his punishment in this world, and the next.”
    “And you’re satisfied?”
    “It isn’t for me.” Luke reached over, laid his hand over Billy’s. “I’ll pray for you.”
    And Billy laid his head down on the table to give in to the tears.
    As he wept, Eve rose. “Billy Crocker, you’re under arrest for the premeditated murder of one James Jay Jenkins, a human being. The charge is murder in the first degree.” She walked around to cuff him, to lift him to his feet. “Peabody.”
    “Yes, sir, I’ll take him. Come with me, Mr. Crocker. You can meet your client after he’s booked,” she told Samuel.
    “Record off,” Eve ordered when Peabody took him out. “I appreciate you seeing he came in,” Eve said to Luke. “Record’s off,” she added when he shook his head. “I admire your faith, and your restraint,” she said to Samuel. “And your loyalty.”
    “A good man is dead,” Luke said softly. “Another is ruined. Lives are shattered.”
    “Murder does that. He coveted another man’s wife, isn’t that how it goes? You know it; I know it. We all know that was part of it, however he justified it.”
    “Isn’t it enough he’ll answer to God for that?”
    Eve studied Luke. “He’ll be answering for plenty in the here and now, so I’ll give you the rest. Will you continue to represent him?” she asked Samuel.
    “Until more experienced criminal defense counsel can be secured. We want to go home. We want to get the family home as soon as possible.”
    “I believe I can clear that by tomorrow. If the more experienced defense counsel opts for trial, the circumstances of motive will come out. Something to consider.” Eve opened the door. “I’ll show you where you can wait.”
    She went back to her office, wrote and filed the report, requested a media block on the details. No point, she thought, in subjecting Jolene and her daughters to the victim’s transgressions. At least not yet.
    She looked up as Peabody came in. “He’s done,” Peabody told her. “I put him on suicide watch. I just had this feeling.”
    “I don’t think he’ll take the easy way, but you get a feeling, you go with it.”
    “You sure had one on this, from the jump. Do you think they’ll deal it down?”
    “Yeah, I think they’ll deal it to Murder Two, and put him in mental defect. Faith as psychosis. He’ll spend the next twenty-five repenting.”
    “That seems mostly right.”
    “Mostly right’s generally enough.” She checked the time, saw she had to let Baxter off the hook. “We’re coming up to end of shift. I want you to follow up with McNab, keep working on the Lino angle. And since the two of you will kissy-face and eat junk food while doing same, I don’t want to see any overtime logged.”
    “I thought we were going to Brooklyn.”
    “I’ll take that, see if I can hook Roarke into playing backup.”
    “Will you play kissy-face and eat junk food?”
    Eve sent her a withering look. “Unless I contact you to tell you otherwise, meet me at St. Cristóbal’s tomorrow morning. Six A.M.”
    “Ouch? Why so early?”
    “We’re going to Mass.”
    Eve picked up her ’link to buzz Roarke.

13
     
    BECAUSE IT GAVE HER TIME TO CONTINUE THE backgrounds she’d begun in her office, Eve asked Roarke to take the wheel for the drive to Brooklyn. As neither of them had finished in their respective offices until after six, traffic was expectedly hideous. Occasionally, she glanced up from her PPC as Roarke maneuvered around, through, and over the horn-blasting, vicious bumper-to-bumper. And wondered why, not for the first or last time, people who worked in Brooklyn didn’t live in Brooklyn, and people who worked in Manhattan didn’t just live the hell there.
    “Do they actually like it?” she wondered. “Get off on the rage, consider it a daily challenge? Are they doing some kind of twisted penance?”
    “You’ve been working faith-based cases too long.”
    “Well, there has to be a point to subjecting yourselves and others to this insanity every day.”
    “Finances, lack of housing.” He flicked a glance in the mirror, then arrowed into the breath of space between a Mini and an all-terrain. “Or the desire to live outside the city in a more neighborhood sort of